I just commented how I am reading some material I received from Lavina
Fielding of the Mormon Alliance, and how much thinking it has me doing, especially the assertion that one of the church's foundational statements that God would never let the Prophet lead the church astray does not in fact have any scriptural
or Gospel basis.

If that is the case, then what it comes down to is the same thing that the
church itself teaches before some personalities try to insert themselves as
being above question, and that they, not take his place.
BUT ...... it is going to be difficult to go to ward conference and sustain
the GA's, and even (and maybe especially) the current Prophet, when I am not
willing to give them a blank check for trust and respect. There are men back
there for whom I have a great deal of contempt. I feel that they have
betrayed the Church. But in many ways it is worse than the GA's who have
antagonized me so. In stonewalling our or the A. T. F. investigation of the
Mark Hoffman bombing.

I wonder how many people see this as I do? Remember that Mark and the GA's
were both playing the same game of duplicity and denial. This is standard
operating procedure for leadership. Speaking from my experience in and out
of leadership positions for the past 25 yrs. I have observed that once one is
in a position to view leadership (which is the toughest position in any
organization or in the Church) one either sticks with it or leaves.

I have witnessed a few come and go EQP's presidents and bishop's counselors etc.
One either puts up with the garbage or one does not. I have witnessed much
duplicity and denial in what I have seen in the past 25 yrs. and that is from
living in 4 or 5 stakes and 4 or 5 wards. All leadership basically looks and
operates the same. Members who are in high positions are protected others
and others are not protected. The ones one would supposed to be exed are not and the ones who should not be are.

I could go on but let me point out two examples. One member of my former bishopric would poke anything with a skirt on. Everyone knew it and a number of people complained to the bishop. The Bishop did nothing at the time. After the bishop was released the counselor was released he was exed, then rebaptized about 1 1/2 yrs. later, where the handbook clearly says 7 yrs. for persons in leadership positions. He is still chases skirts nothing has changed.

Then there is my friend who did nothing just wanted to help feed the poor and
the Bishop wanted to bring him up on charges of priest-craft and apostasy.
The SP intervened and nothing happened. Crazy. The Bishop still caused my
friend grief and called his new bishop and told him all sorts of lies and
stories.

A few years ago, some members of my ward approached me with the idea of
holding a study group. So we started to meet and hold meetings for our study
group. The word got around and a few people visited out groups occasionally.
The man who became the Bishop visited our meetings a few times and encouraged
myself and others to continue. Then when he became Bishop he told us to stop
meeting as an independent study group. He wanted to control our group. All of
the time he was reporting back our activities to the Stake President. Talk
about duplicity and subterfuge. He did his best to divide up the group and
pitted personalities against each other. The group eventually fell apart
because of his activities. Like outlined above my with my friend who wanted
to feed the poor.

Hinckley was the go between who got people to launder the documents by
buying them and then donating them to the church for a tax write off. I know this,
that Hinkley flew back early from the South African temple dedication to
meet with Mark Hofmann about an important matter, The McLellin Collection
and other items.

Hinckley wanted to make sure the documents were authentic, before they were
released to the public. However things got out of hand because of Mark
Hofmann's duplicity, etc. Mark always played both ends against the middle.
I would say Mark duped everyone, although he did come up with a few
authentic gems. The John Taylor, Nauvoo Diary for one. A family member sold
it through Mark to Brent Ashworth. It is real authentic. And some other
minor letters, etc.

I believe that Hinckley got caught up in the "fortress protection
mentality." He wanted to protect the saints from the blow of new
discoveries. "The "Truth" had nothing to do with it. Remember it was
Hinckley who talked about the Anthon manuscript and J. S. II blessing in
conference. I am sure he would have done the same given the time with the
other documents.

I know that Dallin Oaks instructed the GA's not to say anything too
revealing to the police. One problem in dealing with Church leadership is the "Lying for the Lord" teaching to protect the Lord's church. There is so much duplicity,
subterfuge and smoke screening in the higher ranks it is difficult to see
the shore or target through all of the smoke screening.

I have talked to an ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) agent who was a
member, has since become in-active or left the church over the whole
affair. He told me that Hinkley and Oaks stonewalled the investigation in a
big way.

Oaks instructed the leadership how to answer/handle the questions from the
press and the police. This ATF guy was very disappointed in their answers etc. He knew that they knew more than they were telling.

Bell and Farnsworth the main detectives told me I was more corporative with
them than anyone in the Church Hierarchy. I was collecting documents to
write about William E. McLellin and other early Church Leaders, I had
collected a number of letter, and other documents, etc., from published and
unpublished sources. I had Xerox copies of his letters in the RLDS archives
etc. I had the largest McLellin collection they, the detectives had seen.

Mark Hofmann gave me the willies. Especially after his Sunstone Review
interview where he said, "I only do it for the Money." That tipped me off. He found out through mutual friends like Brent Metaclf that I was doing research on D.W. Patten and The Visions D&C sec. 76 and William E. McLellin.
Mark through Lynn Jacobs tried to sell me an elders certificate signed by
D. W. Patten and Luman Gibbs, instead he sold it to the archives. This
document is a forgery. I was a poor college student. He then tried to sell
me or told me about a copy of D&C 76 in the archives. I went and check and
found out his story was non sense.

He tried to dupe me. I was very suspicious of him and did my best to warn
others like David Whittaker and Dean Jessee they did not listen. Oh well
sigh.

"So why did not Hinckley and Oaks get the same intuitive feeling?"

I really cannot answer for them only myself. I do not know maybe they did
and just and ignored them. They could have been so caught up in protecting the
church that they forgot to listen. Or maybe they did not experience it at
all.

Like Joseph Campbell points out in his Power of Myth conversations with
Bill Moyers. The problems of Priests and "holy man monks", etc. is that they
are always fighting and never seeing eye to eye on anything or issue. Yet
you get all of the priests from all of the religions together, Catholic,
Buddhist, etc., and they get along fine. You get all of the Nuns, Monks from the Catholic and Buddhist and others together and they can relate and get along fine.

The problem in the LDS Church is it combines the two, Some are priests
acting as priests to control, etc., some are Spiritual man monks if you will and
they profess the spiritual. There is no room for a division between the
two in the Church.

Actually my experience has been there are far too many priests in the world
and in the Mormon Church than spiritual Monks, Shamans. Etc

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